Originally Posted by
Sasha1972 
How does he show that he's consistently sober? It's up to him to do it. If he's in a 12-step group, does he have a sponsor who will get in touch with you? Does he have medical professionals who he can authorize to talk to you? Has he had a good long run of time (six months or a year) during which no alcohol-related incidents have happened and he has been completely reliable? What would you accept as evidence that he is sober and reliable, that doesn't put you in a position of monitoring and checking up constantly?
These are my questions, how can he show he's sober? I really dont know. Technically, you could say he is doing that. He has a sponsor, he claims he's going to meetings, as far as I know he hadn't had any incidents occur because of his drinking for quite awhile, the last evidence I have of his drinking is September. But in the past he had a sponsor and went to meetings all while still drinking. He is good at telling people what they want to hear. He hasnt shown up drunk or even with any evidence of drinking since we moved, I believe he is trying and I believe our daughter is safe with him while not drinking...but until he can be honest about his "slip ups" I don't know what is reasonable in the way of visitation and custody. Having lived 2 states away for the last 5 months, there is no way of me having any evidence one way or the other except for his declaration of sobriety and obviously his word means nothing to me. So we are at an impasse, he claims sobriety and recovery and I don't believe a word he says. I dont know how to move forward from here.
My biggest red flags are the fact that he doesn't count the days he's been sober even though he has a "sobriety date" (of which I know he's drank at least once since then), he's supposedly on step 9 but the only mention he's made of making amends to me is his "living amends" which I guess he regards him spending time with our daughter in my house and I can actually get things done around the house on those days, he filed unbelievable lies about me during the divorce proceedings and he still won't discuss it while claiming he stands by most of what was filed, he now claims that our daughter had never been in danger in his care which in the past he acknowledged she has been. For him, time seems to erase all mistakes.
All in all, to his friends and family he's done everything he should and I'm being controlling and unreasonable. He says all the right things to me about knowing he has to earn trust back back then flips me s**t when I ask him to follow the plan we agreed to